An Unfair Advantage
by Igenlode Wordsmith
Summary: Cometh the hour, cometh the man... This time there is no interruption to "Point of No Return".


**An Unfair Advantage**

The two voices rise entwined, powerful tenor and soaring passionate soprano, their notes embracing one another with an ardour that more than matches the caresses on stage. _The bridge is crossed, so stand and watch it burn..._

At the climax, Aminta melts into her lover's arms, all resistance overcome. There is clarion triumph in the voice of the hooded Don Juan, a note of victory that goes beyond the mere playing of a part, and beneath the dark cloak he seems almost puffed up with anticipation. As the final chords ring out, thrusting and insistent, he begins to urge her across towards the curtained bed that awaits.

Aminta goes willingly, in a dreamy glide that is more than half a swoon. She seems to hesitate an instant at the last, putting up her hands as if to hold him off. Then her head falls back languorously, offering a kiss, and her grasp slips across his shoulders to put aside the hood that keeps his mouth from hers.

There is shock painted clearly on her face as the cloth falls away, revealing the truth: truth evident to all those looking on. The man who has seduced her with his voice — won her, body and soul — is not whom she had believed him to be.

For a moment longer she is poised between desire and flight. Then, as the curtain, ill-timed, comes jerking down, she yields before the flame that draws her and vanishes within his embrace.

* * *

Backstage, all is chaos. Actors mill uncertainly, scenery is yanked aside, and an unprepared Passarino is thrust bodily out beyond the curtains to perform his next lines in front of an audience virtually in uproar.

"Amateurs," Ubaldo Piangi pronounces, handing off the enveloping cloak to his dresser in the wings and surveying the panic of an under-rehearsed production with benevolent contempt. But it is a verdict that holds all the tolerant amusement afforded by one who knows that his part in the proceedings has been executed without a flaw, and who is cherishing a further achievement of his own besides.

"Magnificent!" Carlotta rushes over to embrace him, ignoring alike the scene change all around them and the presence of Passarino out front, attempting to deliver the necessary exposition to cover it. The stage manager gestures to her frantically to lower her voice, but she shrugs him aside. "Magnificent, _caro mio_! Oh, I do not speak of the music, for that, I spit"—she does so, with aplomb —"but your mastery of such a travesty, it was superb."

"Ah, but I had also some little help." Basking in the praise as his due, Piangi extends a generous gesture of acknowledgement towards Christine Daaé, busy struggling with the quick change for her next big aria. She emerges from the waves of white muslin that comprise Aminta's ripped nightgown looking a little anxious.

"Thank you, Signor Piangi, but..." She casts a nervous glance behind her, and above, up into the flies. "I cannot rest easy while I know that _he_ is out there, watching— waiting—"

Piangi expands further, condescending a little in the flush of his triumph.

"As to that, you need have no fear. It is I, Ubaldo Piangi, who say it." He strikes himself resoundingly upon the chest. "Summon your Vicomte, Christine Daaé. Fetch him here, he and his armed men. Let them see for themselves how Piangi deals with those who would prevent his performance."

He draws back the curtains on the bed upstage with a flourish. Revealed upon the crumpled sheets is the figure of the Phantom, bound, gagged and furious.

"But—" It is Christine's voice that emerges at last from the hubbub that follows, after everyone has begun to exclaim at once. She looks up at the Vicomte, who has arrived post-haste. He puts a protective arm around her shoulders and gets back a somewhat shaky smile in response. Reassured, she turns back to the familiar masked features, then to Piangi. "It _is_ him... Signor, this is wonderful. But... how?"

"We will speak of that later." Ever the professional, Piangi cocks an ear to the sounds emerging from the orchestra pit, where the next scene can be heard about to begin. He indicates towards the auditorium, unseen behind the curtain. "For now — there is an audience. And we have an opera to finish, yes?"

At a sign from the Vicomte, two armed men carry off the struggling captive for questioning. The onlookers disperse as if by magic. And Christine, left alone centre-stage beside the great bed, takes a deep breath as the curtain rises, and begins Aminta's aria on the shame and ecstasy of her deflowering. She is still flushed and trembling a little. But her voice, as she sings of what has just come to pass, has never seemed more glorious, nor her beauty more radiant in its relief.

* * *

"He come at me from behind—so!—with his garotte," Piangi is busy explaining afterwards, in the police commissary's office. The rest of the assembled company are listening eagerly, and Carlotta, seated next to him, hangs in admiration upon his every word with a proprietorial air.

The big tenor makes a dismissive gesture. "But I am not quite the innocent he thinks me, no. When I am young and hungry, in Italy, I live in streets where there are just such murderers and thieves. I have been attacked before, and I act on instinct. I know just what to do."

The Phantom, who despite interrogation has remained stubbornly silent, is no longer able to restrain himself.

"'Just what to do'? Hah!" It is a bitter laugh. "He took an unfair advantage. Our athletic Don Juan here knocked me out all right — he toppled backwards and _fell_ on me."

* * *

 _Author's note: my mental images for this crack-fic were very much influenced by the artwork in Raphael's "Phantoons of the Opera", especially his versions of the Phantom and Piangi!_

http(x):/(x)/(x)www.(x)phantoonsoftheopera.(x)com/(x)gallery.(x)html


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